THE COMEDY OF ERRORS –The One With the Kitchen Wench!

Actually, that’s only partly true, because though the kitchen wench figures in the play, and is drawn as vivid and memorable character as any in Shakespeare’s comedies, she doesn’t actually appear at all! Like the equally memorable (canine), Crab, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, she is another of those exclusive characters who is merely referred to by others –in this case by the hapless Dromio of Syracuse. His description of the determined, lusty and very large maid is one of the funniest passages in all of Shakespeare, comparing her to a globe and listing the various countries her body parts form. It was actually this scene that first brought me to The Comedy of Errors, for I performed it fairly regularly 25 years ago as part of numerous ”Shakespeare Evenings” presented by my old theatre group, The Oslo Players, and it invariably provoked much delight. I then returned to the play when studying for my literature degree, as one of my chosen exam papers was on Roman Comedy –and in particular Menaechmi by Plautus –the play on which The Comedy of Errors is based. In that play there is one set of twins, with two servants; but Shakespeare develops the comedy to new levels of confusion by making the two servants twins as well! The play is thus perhaps not surprisingly the most farcial of all Shakespeare’s plays. And as it is also the shortest one in the canon and all takes place in the same location and has few props and (unusually for Shakespeare) no music, it is a play very suited to small-scale venues, tours or ”special events”. Indeed, it seems to have been performed originally for a group of law students towards the end of an evening’s programme of diverse entertainment, and no doubt went down very well. The only version I have seen was a musical adaptation developed by the RSC in the 1970s and then ”franchised out” to other producers (the one I saw was a Norwegian production). This was a joyful romp that kept pretty much everything in the play and added songs and dance to flesh out the evening. Rodgers & Hart’s musical The Boys From Syracuse was also inspired by this play.

Though farcial and light, and often therefore dismissed as a mere trifle, there is also seriousness in the play in the back story that caused the twins to be separated in the first place. At times while reading it I felt a similarity to that later, more melancholy comedy, Twelfth Night, which also deals with twins and mistaken identity. And the subject matter was not unfamiliar to Shakespeare as he himself was a father to twins (albeit not identical ones). This surely must have informed him or at least been partly on his mind when dealing with this subject so humorously. And he certainly grasped the potential for confusion and mayhem in his deft handling of the unfolding action –which has to be very precisely staged and directed for everything to work; farce is quite scientific in this way, and Shakespeare certainly knows his stuff, and what works theatrically.

I personally think this play comes earlier in the chronology than is generally listed, and believe it was possibly one of the first Shakespeare wrote. This is more something I felt instinctively upon re-reading it than having any real proof. Certainly it is an early work, both in style, language and maturity of character. But it is skillfully written too, and as the text is now surely must be the result of much trial and error on stage of what works and what doesn’t. It is trim and to the point and there is little here that can be easily cut without ruining the meticulous mechanism of the plot. It is a satisfying, fun read, but to be really enjoyable cries out to be up on stage –far more than some of Shakespeare’s other comedies which work equally well in the armchair!

Favourite Line:

Dromio of Syracuse:
As from a bear a man would run for life
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
(Act III, Sc.2)

Character I would most like to play: Dromio (both of Ephesus and Syracuse)